5 Rookie Facebook Ad Mistakes to Avoid

If you’re a small business owner and want to grow your brand online, you’re definitely aware that social media is the place to be. Let’s face it; social media has essentially taken over the internet. But being found on social media isn’t easy. With algorithm updates making it harder to reach your own followers, many are turning to Facebook Ads as a solution.

Here are 5 rookie Facebook Ad mistakes for your business to avoid:

Expecting similar results as Google Search Ads

The natural progression for a lot of small business owners is to see some success in search ads, and want to replicate that on social media. What you’ll soon find out is that it simply doesn’t work that way. Nothing can replicate the intent a user shows when they search for something they need an answer to, and your business is there to help. On social media, the user’s only intent is to have their attention captured by powerful content.

Not creating strong content for your brand

The biggest mistake you can make is trying to spend big on paid social ads without having quality content, and expect great results. In fact, you should be continuously focusing a large chunk of your marketing dollars on content creation for your brand.

Now, in my opinion, the deep level of targeting offered on Facebook & Instagram Ads combined with how little it costs to reach that audience is unmatched, and should be taken advantage of by all businesses before the landscape changes. But no matter how many ads you run, you’re not going to be able to drive results with poor or little content.

Once you have strong content in place, start sharing it on your social media channels & use hashtags to generate relevant traffic to them. Over time, you’ll start to get a better understanding of which content works best & on which platforms. With these valuable insights, you’ll be able to make the most of your paid media spend.

Ignoring the power of custom audiences

Now, your brand should be starting to grow a nice little social media presence and you’ll have plenty of users that fit your target audience interested in your brand. Whether they’re watching your videos, reading your blogs or engaging with your page, these are all users that you can use to create your own custom audience with Facebook. This warmer audience is much more likely (and less expensive) to want 10% off from your store or to download your free eBook than an audience that is just seeing your brand for the first time. You’ll also want to separate your existing customers from these lists, and deliver them exclusive content like some of your latest initiatives. This will help you avoid mismatching your offers with the wrong audience.Tip: You’ll want to make sure your Facebook tracking pixel is implemented correctly in order to take full advantage of custom audiences. The pixel will also allow you to track user behaviour on your site, and trace it back to your paid social efforts.

Avoiding Facebook & Instagram Stories

Stories is one of the more recent additions to the Facebook & Instagram platforms. For advertisers, it’s an area they don’t want to miss out on. Unlike in the News Feed, where users basically trained themselves to scroll past everything until they see something worth scrolling back to, Stories offers a full-screen mobile experience that has the power to completely capture a users attention as they wait for the next eye-catching Story to appear. You’re able to incorporate images, video, sound, and even drive traffic to an external page. Better yet, they’ve proven to be one of the most affordable methods of social media advertisement available.

Here are some best practices to help you get started:

Make the first half-second visually appealing. This way, you will interest the user enough to want to find out what’s next.

Make your brand name noticeable. Given the limited amount of time you have of the user’s attention, being subtle isn’t going to cut it.

Incorporate music. This is another great way to pull the user’s focus into your ad.

Make it relevant. Target the right audience and make it easy for the user to complete the action you want them to take. This might mean sending them to your site to download a free guide.

Forgetting about optimizations

Making optimizations to your ads will ensure that performance improves as opposed to going down. This means higher click-through-rates, lower cost-per-clicks, better ROI and more conversions. Thankfully, the Facebook platform has provided you with plenty of data & tools to help you get the most out of your ad spend.

The first thing that most advertisers like to test is ad variations. This is extremely important, as you don’t want to fall victim to ad-fatigue. You might want to consider using different messaging for different audiences. For example, a product review or comparison might be a better ad for users farther along in your funnel.

Another tip to help get you started is to consider using an ad schedule on your ads to avoid spending through your budget too quickly. You might want to start by not having your ads show between 1am-6am, for example. And as you collect more data, you can start to see the times where your ads are performing best and adjust your ad schedule appropriately. You can also see how desktop fare, against mobile and whether or not Facebook, Instagram, or Audience Network performed better. If you get really good at analyzing the data in your account, you can start setting automated rules to make optimizations occur based on specific outcomes that you set!

To conclude, Facebook Ads are very different from search ads & require a unique approach to get the results you’re looking for. Start by creating strong, quality content that entices users and keeps them interested in your brand. Then you can start creating custom audience lists of users in different stages of your marketing funnel and really start to utilize the powerful & cost-effective Facebook Ad platform.

To learn more about best practices for leveraging social media ads, speak to a digital marketing expert at TechWyse at 866.288.6046, or contact us here.

James is our Social Coordinator at TechWyse. He is a sports enthusiast with a strong passion for online marketing and all things digital. If he is not on social media, he is probably checking his fantasy league.

James is our Social Coordinator at TechWyse. He is a sports enthusiast with a strong passion for online marketing and all things digital. If he is not on social media, he is probably checking his fantasy league.